rubiksoval

That makes zero sense from both a physiological perspective and a biomechanical one.

Cadence does not just magically give you extra power.

rubiksoval

That's like asking why bigger riders hate climbs. Or smaller riders hate crosswinds.

People tend to gravitate towards what they're good at. People that are good at time trialing like to time trial. Shocking.

Bandera

Yet another Ignore: ncr.

-Bandera

ncr

No magic involved, it does when you know how to make maximal use of the dead spot sector (11-1 o'c). The stupid objective of expensive oval shaped chainrings is to slow down crank speed where most effective tangential force is being applied to the crank (2-4 o'c) and move it faster through TDC, but the problems with this idea are the accelerations and decelerations are almost insignificant, muscles cannot cope with the repetitive sudden changes that are necessary and riders are already applying high power in this sector. The sensible objective of Anquetil's special TT pedalling technique was to more than double this sector where most effective tangential force is normally applied, by extending it back before TDC, which meant he could apply additional high power where all natural pedallers' legs were idling or applying minimal torque, giving him many minutes of extra high power application time over a 60 minute period.

rubiksoval

No magic involved, just your imagination?

You just made up everything you just said. All of that is ridiculous.

ncr

You are right, it began in my imagination, the success lay in bringing it to fruition.
https://jamesclear.com/dick-fosbury

wphamilton

I don't want to nit-pic but this isn't very clear. Your power depends on the pressure on the pedal at your given RPM and crank. Do you mean to minimize the peak pressure?



This is what throws me in these discussions that emphasize where the foot is so much. My foot angle depends how I feel like pedaling at the moment. The variation more than accounts for any minute change in saddle height, unless you're talking an inch or two plus or minus. The knee angle is determined by that - how I flex my ankle - and by where I sit on the saddle. And these are all fluid enough (plus, I don't use clipless so add float to that) that small changes in saddle height, and saddle forward or back, aren't all that determinate. So, at least it's not obvious to me that those angles are determined by the saddle's position and mechanics.

Carbonfiberboy 

If you don't use full foot retention, my pedaling discussions don't apply to you. Of course clipless pedals allow more float, so I don't know what you mean by that comment.

wphamilton

That's even less clear - pedal float is the foot's mobility, which is greater with half-clips or heaven forbid platforms, than with clipless.

Everything else applies regardless of preferred foot retention, which was more of an afterthought there - but are you acknowledging that all of these "fitting" mechanics don't really matter if you don't use clip straps or clipless?

*what I mean by the comment is, a 5mm adjustment in seat for instance, which is considered to be a large one, will have a lot less impact on your knee angle than dropping your heel just a small amount. Float, moving your foot forward or back, has the same impact. So I didn't see it as all true that knee angles are determined by the saddle position and mechanics. Unless you meant by "mechanics" the same things I'm talking about ... but you could move my saddle and I'd probably adjust my pedaling without even noticing, and my knee angles would be the same.

But forget all that if you want, I'm more curious about the question I asked. Were you getting at "peak force" on the pedals and just phrased it as "as little pressure as possible", because that isn't clear to me.

rubiksoval

Posting completely unrelated links does nothing to validate your imaginative position.

Carbonfiberboy 

The bolded - yes, that's what I said or meant to say. People keep their knee angle the same and adjust with foot angle, or vice versa - adjust saddle height to achieve desired foot angle.

Yes, I meant to distribute pressure so as to reduce the necessary peak pressure. You see some riders bobbing over the downstroke like Eddic, hammering that downstroke. I think one gets better endurance by spinning faster and better distributing the pedal forces. With flats, the distribution is much more limited than with foot retention. When I was a kid of course I rode flats, up until I got my first road bike at 17, with rat traps and straps. It was a revelation. I was almost positive that I could do a power wheelie on the thing, but of course never could. Going over small bumps in the asphalt, I could get the front wheel off the ground briefly. I called it "turbine powered."

Trying to answer what maybe your question is: I get max pedal force maybe at 4:30, which corresponds to 10:30 on the other side, probably the weakest point in the circle. If you pedal one-legged to exhaustion with foot retention, one starts getting a slack chain right about 10:30, probably because our weak hip flexors are almost fully contracted and out of gas at that point. So the idea is to achieve as balanced a stroke as possible by getting the opposite torques to keep adding up to a constant number. Of course that isn't really practical even if it is possible, but that's the idea. Smooth it up, they say.

ncr

Why is that max pedal force occurring so late in your downstroke, where from the torque/force aspect it is less effective. Smoothing it up is the way but only when you are applying maximal forces to your cranks.

Carbonfiberboy 

Yup, you got that exactly right. Something is definitely up, namely neuromuscular control, the whole point of my posts on this subject. I do it that way on purpose so as to even out total force on the chain throughout the pedaling cycle. I have some serious hamstrings and decent hip flexors. Next time you go out, try to pedal without consciously pushing down on the pedals at all. An interesting drill is to get on the flat, put the bike in a low gear, and pedal very fast with only the shoe uppers, leaving air between your socks and the shoe sole. Not saying that's how one should normally pedal, but trying to pedal that way is very interesting. Obviously that cannot be done without foot retention.

ncr

"What occurs during the latent period of muscle contraction

Muscle Contraction:

Muscle contraction is dependent on electrical impulses from nerves. For example, when a person wants to contract the muscles in their leg in order to walk, the brain will send electrical impulses to the nerves of these muscles. Once these muscles receive these electrical impulses from the nerves, it will trigger a series of events that cause the muscles to contract.

Answer and Explanation:

The latent period of muscle contraction refers to the very short period of time between when the muscle receives the electrical impulse from the nerve and when the muscle actually contracts. During this time, the nerve impulse travels along the sarcolemma (membrane that covers muscle fibers) to the sarcoplasmic reticulum, which is a structure in muscles that releases calcium ions into the muscle. Once the calcium ions enter the muscle, actin and myosin filaments will bind which causes the muscle to contract."

============================================================================================

It is noticeable in the graphs of many natural pedallers that their peak torque is occurring after 3 o'c, that latent period in muscles probably explains why. For that reason it has been suggested that you should start your downstroke at 12 o'c or before. In your case you are attempting to apply a minimal force over the top when you should have already started your downstroke, pushing peak torque application further down. I spent 17 years experimenting with every possible technique, including the one you mention of neutralizing the downward force but that's too stressful on the weakest muscles as demonstrated by Powercranks. I also noticed the more you attempt to apply torque during the upstroke, the more you reduce your downstroke pedal power because you are splitting your brain's concentration.

Carbonfiberboy 

Latency deosn't happen/certainly isn't an issue with any trained athlete. Otherwise players could miss the basket and hit their golf ball into the woods. Which happens, but can be trained out. Neuromuscular coordination happens all by itself with training. Pedaling efficiently is only hard on weak muscles if they're weak. Training fixes that, too. One of the reasons I slaughter all my stronger-than-I buddies on hill sprints is that I still can pull up hard enough to lift the bike off the ground. That comes from pedaling practice. Beat you - I've been working on it for 25 years. I can still remember the day I successfully executed 3 proper pedal strokes in a row.

Your brain isn't supposed to be involved at all. It's all done by programming the spinal ganglions. It's like skiing. First day of the season I can ski moguls just fine though it took me a decade to get the hang of it long ago. Practice, practice, practice. Never give up.

There was that rider who tested Powercranks for a whole season and found that they didn't do anything for him. He could ride them just fine the first day. Now why would that be? It's a BF myth that Powercranks don't work:
My first 90 Days with PowerCranks
https://texastailwind.wordpress.com/...ycling/page/3/
You're not supposed to pull up hard, just lift your foot and the weight of the crank. W/O Powercranks, you don't even have to lift the weight of the crank. One-legged pedaling is good, too. I've done that for a couple decades. Works good.

rubiksoval

Wow. That's not a BF thing. That's a real-world thing.

Powercranks are a joke.

Carbonfiberboy 

This old dog is still learning new tricks and getting better at the old ones. Too bad they've taken the PDF of this behind a paywall but here's the abstract.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21507064

I had a lot of biceps femoris activation on the Sunday Rabbit ride. As the thousands of feet of climbing added up, it got easier and easier to stay with or chase down the leaders. Worked on that some more today, riding tandem with my wife. Legs are just slaughtered. OLP for recovery and then gym tomorrow. 13 Strava PRs Sunday.

Absolutely they matter.
▼

seau grateau

There's nothing in there that indicates that the power improvements are attributable to PowerCranks.

Carbonfiberboy 

I might point out that it's not up to you to question the tester's decisions and results. See below:

Better yet, those who wish to advocate against training with Powercranks please indicate how many hundred miles you trained with them before realizing that you weren't getting any results.

I haven't trained with them, not being willing to spend the money on that. Instead, I've trained those same muscles using very high cadence and one-legged pedaling, training myself to minimize pedal forces at high efforts. That's worked. It's the greater muscular endurance of that approach which those pedaling studies point out.

Of course one would not race or ride a fondo with Powercranks. There are times when one has to concentrate on hammering the downstroke for short periods. Though those times are only a tiny percentage of ride time, they are often at critical points. One has to train that ability, too.

seau grateau

Yes it is. However, it's not up to you to imply that there's a causative relationship there when there isn't.

guachi

This was also my conclusion after reading the article at the link.

rubiksoval

As an aside, I find it flabbergasting that you drink the cool-aide of a decade-old fad like powercranks but go on and on about data and results and the like, and yet you still don't use a power meter.

Probably the quintessential training tool to both qualify and quantify your training and performance. I'm hoping you get one at some point. I think it'll be very insightful.

burnthesheep

Next up.........Velotrons and crank length.

ncr

Can you quote one example where I was discredited ? That change in username was caused by a difficulty in trying to log in after the forum was shut down for a couple of days while changes were taking place. Frank Day inventor of Powercranks was banned because of his nonsensical claim that training with his independent cranks could increase pedal power by up to 40 %.

redlude97

+1, especially with PMs nowadays that can determine torque effectiveness and pedalling smoothness it should be easy to determine if pulling up is more effective